“Allen Vaught unquestionably supports public education and is proactive in finding solutions that improve and strengthen our neighborhood public schools.”

- Pam Meyercord, Texas Parent PAC

Here’s a plateful of Dallas Special Education to start your day:

First, Got Crack? Meet Donald Johnson, crack smokin’, runnin’ from the cops, Dallas special education teacher extraordinaire.

I am sure Mr. Johnson is an extreme example of what is lurking in the DISD special education classrooms, but who really knows what happens in the locked trailers that blanket the Dallas ISD landscape. There is no guarantee the children in Mr. Johnson’s class could have transferred out of his class to another. The only way to change schools or programs or classrooms is to cross your fingers, corner someone big in an ARD meeting, hope the ISD Gods smile upon you and throw you a bone, and hope they don’t decide you’re getting too wise on the federal laws they continually ignore and decide to sue you. Think it doesn’t happen? Private law firms love them some neighborhood schools to the tune of $58 million just last year.

Got training? There is no specific training required to work in special education in Texas. You could have a degree in home-ec or opera and have your very own classroom – maybe one like this:

Want more? Got Layoffs? Mr. Johnson, the late night crack smokin’ Dallas special ed teacher, wasn’t RIF’d in DISD’s latest “budget crisis” where $84 million mysteriously vanished. Want to see who was RIF’d (code for fired)? It’s all here! Multiple special ed teachers fired from some neighborhood schools, including the east Dallas elementary my own son attended for 3 months of Kindergarten. Don’t know about his 3 months of public school in Dallas, Texas? Click here.

“Allen Vaught has earned our endorsement for State Representative. He has demonstrated to us that our children and their future are among his top priorities.”

- Texas Parent PAC

Is working in special education in DISD beginning to sound like a dream job to you?

Just wait, it gets even better.

Got Cash? Children with disabilities like autism bring in more cash to schools than any other type of kid. Go look at the trailers at your own neighborhood school. Read the signs on the trailer doors. Got Rotting Shacks? Be sure to look for the one furthest from the main building – the one with the wheelchair ramp. Check out the ones right next to busy streets. Check out the busted, twisted sidewalks leading to these trailers and imagine getting to your trailer using those sidewalks in a wheelchair or other mobility device. Want to do something really fun? Check out DISD’s online check register. Got Deals? Search for terms like “portable classrooms” and then search by the vendor names that appear. That’s a lotta money. More on the trailer/trailer sidewalk scheme later.

Got FERPA and IDEA violations? Play around with that DISD check register a little more and you’ll find full names of children with disabilites – lots of ‘em. Even some from our own HD-107 neighborhood schools. I won’t tell you how to find them – their privacy has been violated enough by DISD.

I took those pictures of Truett Elementary just last week. Donald Johnson was caught smoking crack at 2am on a school night just this week – 6 hours before he would have headed to the neighborhood school. Special ed, in all it’s glory, was wiped out in many Dallas neighborhood schools during the layoffs JUST THIS MONTH.

Autism parents approached Allen Vaught just after he was elected 2 years ago looking for solutions. Looking for safe ways to access any sort of appropriate education for their children. That was TWO YEARS AGO. Since then we have theft of millions, layoffs of hundreds, a crack smokin’ special ed teacher, more trailers at our neighborhood school – is that all? Oh no, it’s not.

Yesterday Allen Vaught’s greatest fans, the teacher unions, protested in front of the Dallas ISD Headquarters. They want Superintendent Dr. Hinojosa fired. Vaught spent last session boasting to autism parents of his close relationship with Dr. Hinojosa, offering to set up meetings and get their children into the program of their wishes.

From Vaught’s own website:

Programs for special needs children

Christine Gianadda lives in East Dallas with her eight and a half year old son who suffers from autism. She has been looking for a school in her neighborhood with the right program for special needs children since her son was in kindergarten – when she first realized that he was in serious trouble. “He was three months into kindergarten and he was saying he wished he was dead – and that was it,” Gianadda said. “I pulled him out for the year, held him back, moved into private school – we tried two private schools but they haven’t worked.” Gianadda, who is now home-schooling her son, has turned to the state for help. Vaught told Gianadda and other families at the meeting that as much as he wants to help there is simply not enough money at the state level to go around.

“You have autistic children, hearing impaired children, blind children, and when we start taking funds for one group you need to do it for everyone and before you know it you’ve got a bankrupt system,” Vaught said. He voted against a voucher system that some parents see, as the only way to fund special needs programs.

“I’m opposed to the voucher program, I campaigned against it, I voted against it, but my heart goes out to these people because to them that’s the only ray of hope they see,” Vaught said. Vaught met with Gianadda and other families of special needs children after the meeting to suggest they approach the problem at a local level. He told them to make an appointment with DISD. “Get in touch with Dr. Hinijosa and I will come with you,” Vaught said.

Won’t hear Vaught boasting about that connection now. The unions want Hinojosa, our umpteenth superintendent in how many years, fired. So he can be replaced with another dude who protects the same system that manages to have huge financial scandals every single year.

Two years, and what has Vaught done but protect the very system that brazenly creates these huge messes? What has Vaught, who his primary funders (teachers unions and the Texas Parent PAC) refer to as having “demonstrated to us that our children and their future are among his top priorities”, done but sit back, protect this machine that enables so much corruption and theft – and talk.

The answer? Nothing.

Got Talk? Got Rhetoric? Got special interest groups? Got Vaught?